The Campaignguy Blog

DO NOT SKIP THIS BLOG POST! Not every voter is "your" voter. The key to winning an election is knowing who the voters are in your district, understanding your natural "base" of supporters, who thew "swing" voters are (and what issues they care about), and the cohort of voters who will likely not support you (for reasons of policy, party, etc.).  Why is targeting important? I have consulted on numerous political campaigns over the years.  There are four limited resources on a campaign: time, information, money and people.  The first is time.  Time is a resource that cannot be created.  You know exactly how many seconds there are between this moment and the close of polls on election day.  Throughout all of the campaigns I have managed or consulted, I have met many eager candidates who pledged that they will knock on every door in the district.   Well, unless the district is very tiny, or you have superhuman powers akin to Santa Claus, the likelihoo...

  When I ran my first political campaign in 1995, I did not know what I was doing. I was a 20 year-old college student at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.  I had excellent organizational skills, I was a former boy scout, I was in Navy ROTC, and I was in College Republicans.  I was also a lifeguard at the university's aquatic center.  None of these things prepared me for running a countywide race. I did not even think of looking for a book about how to run a political campaign.  I thought that type of text would not exist. So everything I began learning about how to run a political campaign, I had to learn organically - either by creating my own system or learning from others who had run campaigns, before. Fortunately, I was able to work with a campaign professional who had run federal and state political races.  I took classes about campaigning that were offered in my state, and I began to learn how campaigns were structured and how successful people won t...

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Humans versus Artificial Intelligence (AI) Artificial intelligence continues to shape our lives, from customer service bots to self-driving cars.   But it has also quietly entered, like an invasive species, another arena: political campaigns. The question voters now face is both unsettling and important — are we voting for real people, or for personas curated and crafted by AI? It’s no secret that campaigns are largely driven by image. From the first televised presidential debates to today's social media soundbites, candidates are packaged to appeal to different audiences. It seems like some consultants can design a candidate to fit any identity from sex, age, and height to race, religion or sexual preference.   Some of the candidates seem to be straight from central casting. Increasingly, and covertly, that packaging is no longer just the work of human consultants and strategists — it's progressively being generated, tested, and refined by artificial intelligence. H...

Anything important requires a plan! Before a pilot flies a plane, he files a flight plan. Before a professor or teacher begins their class, they develop a plan. Every building, from the tallest skyscrapers to the smallest backyard shed, requires a plan. Athletes on a court or a field have a plan for their games, and they practice those plans repeatedly before a match. But many people who want to run for elected political office jump into a campaign without a plan. Why would someone run for office without a plan? A well-organized campaign plan serves as your roadmap to victory. A campaign plan maps out how to use your time. A campaign plan will create a path for raising money, and then how to responsibly spend it. A campaign plan focuses you on paying attention to the most important information available in your political race and how to create a message, what the right message is, and who you need to reach. The PoliticalCampaign Desk Reference by Michael McNamara has...